


Valse Imaginaire

by cecilysmith



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Depressed Steve, Depression, M/M, Pre-CACW, post-CATWS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-06-09 12:47:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6907879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilysmith/pseuds/cecilysmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Why’d you come back to me so soon?” Steve asked anxiously, letting Bucky place his hands on his shoulders.</p><p>Bucky shrugged one shoulder. “Couldn’t leave my best guy, now could I?”</p><p>Steve smiled sadly, pressing his face into the crook of Bucky’s neck. “I missed you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Valse Imaginaire

**Author's Note:**

> So this fic is named after and inspired by Valse Imaginaire by Oskar Schuster, which is an amazing song. (I love Oskar Schuster with a passion and you all should go listen to his stuff.)
> 
> Other than that, I'm dumping my sad Stucky feels on you all. I almost cried writing it. Good luck.

Steve hated silence, always had.

Before the war, the wind rattled the walls of whatever dingy apartment he’d been living in, whether it with his mother or with Bucky. The furnace rattled in the winter, and if the apartment was finally quiet, the distant roar of cars and crowds bustling by made sure that silence was an impossibility.

Even in the many hospital visits of his childhood, there’d never been an ounce of quiet. Nurses spoke and machines beeped and the loud metal beds creaked as they rolled by on squeaky wheels.

During the war, there was always the sound of the Commandos laughing in the distance, or a fire tackling, or the wind howling or leaves rustling.

Steve had never lived with silence, and he didn’t want to. If everything else had to change, he wanted to keep this little thing.

So on days when the only thing he could hear was people walking through the hallways of his building every few hours, he put on a peaceful Spotify playlist. (He smiled to himself, just a little. He’d found Spotify on his own. He wasn’t as technologically inept as people thought.)

Every so often, a song would come on, and a sudden intrusive thought would worm its way into Steve’s head: Bucky would have loved this.

In the three days since returning home from the hospital after the Winter Soldier incident, Steve was not thinking about Bucky. He was admittedly and unashamedly in denial. He hadn’t slept a wink since the tiny, uncomfortable hospital bed in the Avengers tower. He was running on fumes, and spent his days drawing or cleaning or reading or researching or anything, _anything_ that would distract him from the desperate thoughts clawing animalistically at the edges of his mind, wearing him down until the day he would inevitably break.

So far, he was numb and unfeeling and while it was awful, torturing him every moment of his existence, at the same time it was more than he could ever wish for.

It was on the fourth day that the careful, fragile walls he’d built up against himself shattered beneath the pressure.

He was in the shower, and he should be washing, but instead he was standing under the spray of water that was quickly losing its heat, trying his best to not think, to not feel. But he knew, he _knew_ that it was too late even before his knees painfully hit the tiled floor of the shower. He was distantly aware of blood staining the water, but it didn’t matter because oh god, _Bucky_. Bucky was alive and he was hurt and he didn’t remember Steve, it was all _too much he was curled around his bloodied knees and sobbing, ugly choking sobbing that he’d held in for too long._

He didn’t want to believe it was real. Bucky, the love of his life that he’d spent the two years of his life after thawing out mourning, was not dead but alive, alive and trying to kill him.

Steve didn’t remember getting out of the shower, didn’t remember pulling on sweatpants and curling up under the cold, unused blankets of his bed, didn’t remember drifting to sleep.

When he awoke, there was warm breath on the back of his neck, hands wrapped around his waist, and legs tangled with his.

“Hey, punk.” Someone said. “You’re finally awake.”

Steve scrambled up, jumped off the bed, because Bucky was brainwashed. Had orders to kill him.

Gone.

“Stevie, what’s wrong? You have a nightmare?” Bucky asked softly.

But Bucky was _here_ and the only thing changed about him was his metal arm.

“Buck.” He whispered, wringing his hands together. “Do you remember?”

Bucky nodded, a little sad. “Everything.”

Steve hesitantly held his hand out, and Bucky took it, getting up out of the rumpled sheets that Steve felt a desperate urge to fix, but the urge disappeared when Bucky took his hands, pressed close to him, murmuring sweet nothings in his ear like nothing ever happened.

“Why’d you come back to me so soon?” Steve asked anxiously, letting Bucky place his hands on his shoulders.

Bucky shrugged one shoulder. “Couldn’t leave my best guy, now could I?”

Steve smiled sadly, pressing his face into the crook of Bucky’s neck. “I missed you.” His voice was hoarse, uneven. Bucky sighed and hugged him, letting Steve cling to him, until--

Bucky stood straighter, let his arms fall to his sides. He cocked an eyebrow and looked up as if lost in thought. Finally, he said, “Say, this song’s real good. Dance with me?”

And once upon a time, Steve would’ve protested, muttering, “No, Buck. You know I can’t dance. Two left feet.”

But today, Steve murmured, “Yeah, Buck. Okay.” And Bucky guided Steve’s hands so they rested on Bucky’s waist, and Bucky looped his arms around Steve’s neck, pulling him closer so their foreheads were touching. The rocked back and forth, and Steve stared into Bucky’s eyes. They were a stormy gray-blue, a colour that Steve had tried and failed to paint for months before he gave up, destroying all the canvasses he couldn’t bear to look at. But now. Now, he wondered how he could’ve ever gotten it wrong, because now that Bucky was right there in front of him, everything seemed so clear.

He felt a little bulkier, like he’d put on some muscle since the last time Steve saw him, or the last time Steve saw _this_ version of him. He probably had.

“Heya, Stevie. Stop thinkin’ so much, you punk.” There was a free, confident smile on his face, one that hadn’t appeared since before he’d been drafted in the war.

“Can’t help it.” Steve replied, pulling him closer. “‘S been a while since I’ve seen you, jerk.”

“Yeah.” Bucky agreed. “I missed you, Stevie.”

“Buck, I… You’re gonna stay, right?” _I can’t handle you leaving, not again._

“Course I will, baby. I’m never gonna leave you again.” Suddenly, he frowned. “What’d you do to your knees, doll?”

Steve had forgotten about that. “I just fell, Buck. ‘M all right.”

Bucky laughed quietly. “If you say so.”

Slowly, Bucky took Steve’s face in his hands and kissed him, soft and sweet. Steve kissed him back, feeling light and breathless and happier than he had in years.

The song ended, and Bucky smiled in a melancholic sort of way.

“I love you.” Steve whispered.

Bucky just kept smiling his sad smile.

* * *

Steve woke up with a crick in his neck and his whole body aching. Ice cold water was pouring over his back and his knees were bloody.

He stopped to listen, and realized the same damn song was on. He recognized it now. He reached out of the shower and, impulsively, shattered his phone, not noticing the wounds on his hand from the glass shards.

 _Valse Imaginaire_. Imaginary waltz.

He got out of the shower and collapsed in bed, unable to stand for a moment longer. If he concentrated hard enough, he thought he could smell Bucky’s scent on the pillow.

Or maybe he was imagining that, too.


End file.
